STAR WARS. And some STAR TREK, mostly the movies and THE NEXT GENERATION.

Marilyn Peake

Novels: THE FISHERMAN’S SON TRILOGY and GODS IN THE MACHINE. Numerous short stories. Contributor to BOOK: THE SEQUEL. Editor of several additional books. Awards include Silver Award, 2007 ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Awards.

It's a little bit of an unfair comparison if you ask me....One's predominantly movie based, the other a series. Trek is a Utopian, formulaic and serial; Star Wars is more chaotic, Dystopian and a single overarching story. Trek will always be remembered for the Appalling Kirk fight with the Gorn; Star Wars the "I am your father" line with is practically modern culture now.

But if I HAD to pick one I'd go for Trek.....not because of quality (because I think the first 3 Star Wars films represent the best thing ever filmed in space - running 2001 a close second) but simply because of the sheer weight and size of Trek. It has a history and background and culture so mind-bogglingly HUGE it just has to be respected and revered. 'Star trek 2 - Wrath of Khan', '...4 - The Voyage Home' and '...6 - The Undiscovered Country' are good enough in their own right to take on the Star Wars films, but on top of the massive body of mythology it's just too good.

Star Wars is a great epic history of man's future and how we deal with it. I didn't like the Skywalker who turned into Vader and thought the acting was less than stellar. However, it is eye pleasing, realistic and frustrated h**l out of me that he's not going on with the last three! [I bet he will, sooner or later]

Star Trek, on the other hand, came about at a time when SciFi on TV was generally mild. The crew had a series of different encounters every week. It would never had worked unless a lot of viewers became enamoured and demanded it be rerun. That, in turn, spawned the following three where the difference was basically the ability to show amazing special effects. Picard was okay. I really liked the one about the space station and thought the MC was very good - don't know what happened to him as I haven't seen him in other series. The other with McGrew as captain, never thrilled me.

Trek, all the way. Deep Space Nine if you want to boil it down to a specific series. I do have a bit of a soft spot for the Data-centric episodes of TNG, though.

I do like Star Wars, but not enough for me to watch it all that often. Honestly I haven't touched a single thing Star Wars since Revenge of the Sith came out on DVD, however many centuries ago that was. With Star Trek you get three good shows with fairly lengthy seasons, two mediocre shows with fairly lengthy seasons, and a whole slew of films. A lot more to choose from depending upon what tickles my fancy. And Trek's stories are at least semi-original, for the most part. Star Wars is pretty blatantly every film or ancient myth Lucas thought was cool packaged nice and neat in the shiny wrapping paper of Lucas' ideas and then launched into space.

Star Wars was the FIRST movie I ever fell in love with. I remember watching the original ( episode 4 ) at a drive in movie theater. They were the movie for my friends and I. The unforgettable "Luke, I am your father!" line was incredible. The force. Jedis. The Dark Side. What's not to love ( besides episode 1, the stupid way in which Anakin changed sides, and Jar Jar Binks ).

I am sure plenty of people will feel differently, but there is no contest for me: Star Trek. And here's a story from Christmas 2003, the day after my husband and I got engaged. We were at his maternal grandparents house, accepting congrats from everyone, and his aunt Kass pulled me aside to have the following conversation with me:
Cass: Ginger, Brian's a wonderful guy, but you know, he does have a downside.
Me: What?
Cass: He's a big Star Wars fan.
Me: (confused) Oh, I didn't know he liked Star Wars, too. (Secretly beginning to freak out). I thought he just liked Star Trek.
Cass: No, Star Trek! He likes Star Trek. I get them mixed.
Me: Oh, thank god.

So yes. I could not be with a man who was a huge fan of Star Wars. Though I do think Return of the Jedi is a very good film, and that's probably due to the fact an actual SF writer worked on the script (Leigh Brackett, and her actual real contribution remains murky).